AMC renews 'The Walking Dead,' but showrunner Glen Mazzara departs

AMC has renewed "The Walking Dead" for a fourth season, but the zombie drama will once again be making a change at showrunner, as Glen Mazzara will be leaving the series after post-production work concludes on season 3.

"The Walking Dead" is one of the biggest hits in all of television. Among adults 18-49, it's the highest-rated non-sports show of the 2012-13 TV season, in fact. Despite that, it hasn't been immune from behind-the-scenes turmoil. Frank Darabont, who adapted the series from Robert Kirkman's comic books and ran the show in its first year-plus, was forced out midway through season 2 for reasons that still haven't entirely been explained. And now Mazzara — who was Darabont's number two and took over following Darabont's abrupt exit — is gone as well, with his exit folded into news of the show's unsurprising renewal.

"Today, AMC announces the season 4 pick-up of 'The Walking Dead,'" the network said in a statement. "AMC also jointly announces with Glen Mazzara today that for future seasons, the two parties have mutually decided to part ways. Glen guided the series creatively for seasons 2 and 3. AMC is grateful for his hard work. We are both proud of our shared success. Both parties acknowledge that there is a difference of opinion about where the show should go moving forward, and conclude that it is best to part ways. This decision is amicable and Glen will remain on for post-production on season 3B as showrunner and executive producer."

In a separate statement, Mazzara said, "My time as showrunner on 'The Walking Dead' has been an amazing experience, but after I finish season 3, it’s time to move on. I have told the stories I wanted to tell and connected with our fans on a level that I never imagined. It doesn’t get much better than that. Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this journey."

And producer Gale Ann Hurd, the main constant amid these other departures, said in her own statement, “I am appreciative and grateful to Glen for his hard work on ‘The Walking Dead.’ I am supportive of AMC and Glen's decision and know that the series is in great hands with one of the most talented and dedicated casts and crews in the business. I look forward to the show's continued success.”

UPDATE: And one more statement, courtesy of Robert Kirkman (who is also a writer and producer on the series)" "I am in full support of both AMC and Glen Mazzara in the decision they have come to and believe the parties came to this decision in the best interest of the future of the show. I thank Glen for his hard work and appreciate his many contributions to 'The Walking Dead' and look forward to working with him as we complete post production on Season 3. I am also excited to begin work on another spectacular season of this show that I know means so much to so many people. This show has always been the result of a wide range of extremely talented men and women working tirelessly to produce their best work collectively. I believe the future is bright for 'The Walking Dead.' Thank you to the fans for your continued support."

Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

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They seem to be the same thing at AMC lately. Ever since Weiner's deal for Mad Men they keep saying money is tight and then they bring back The Killing (albeit with help), which can do nothing but hurt the AMC brand further. I can see AMC not liking how dark the first 8 episodes were this half season, but they've brought the best ratings and best critical response, so why mess with a good thing? I hope Mazzara or someone close actually tells us what happens since, like Alan said, we don't know what happened with Darabont

So in the wake of Darabont's departure, there were a bunch of stories talking about how Darabont was the problem, how he was incapable of collaborating and all that. Now that Mazzara is also leaving after a season and half in charge, is there any reason not to conclude that AMC is the problem?

No. No there is not. I know the ratings keep getting better, but you really have to wonder about AMC seemingly doing everything they can to sabotage the most popular drama in cable history behind the scenes.

AMC is absolutely the problem. They fight with all their showrunners and they also pick public fights with cable providers constantly, such as the bizarre out-of-nowhere broadsides against Verizon recently, shrinking the screen and running obnoxious screen-crawls during TWD just to attack Verizon and claim that Verizon wanted to drop them in order to stir up a s***storm with TWD fans. At the same time, AMC starves its channels for HD bandwidth -- they have the worst-looking HD in the business. What a walking disaster of a channel.

Who knows but I suspect Matt Weiner talking all of AMC's money (not literally but you know what I mean) is the real problem. I suspect that to be behind a lot of decisions we haven't liked from cutting back on BBad to showrunner roulette on Walking Dead.

This is a good opportunity to ask something I have wondered for a long while: Why don't the journalists who "cover" the world of TV have sources who can cut through the press release BS and tell us the whole story when something like this happens? A difference of opinion about the direction of the show? Okay, what exactly was the difference of opinion? In TV are there no "people close to the situation" who leak information to the press? Is the "entertainment beat," unlike the political beat, just considered too trivial for journalists to bother investigating behind-the-scenes matters? I am not faulting Alan for anything, I hasten to add. This is about the business he is in and common practice in that line of work.

Yes, but I wasn't talking about imaginary crap from imaginary sources made up by the journalist. I am talking about real people who work on these shows or at these TV channels. The White House and Congress can't stop leaks to the press but TV studios can? Really?

People can't be fired if their bosses don't know WHO leaked information. That's how it works in politics and sports, right? Journalists protect the identities of their sources who wish to remain anonymous.

Politics and Hollywood are nothing alike in this respect. Neither is sports. These people don't talk because they need to eat, and the chance of being compromised for speaking out is high. You'll notice that when a film production goes horribly wrong that the "real story" is rarely revealed in any depth unless there's a law suit that forces public disclosure.

The networks are mostly run by large corporations with share holders, boards of executives, and massive arsenals of lawyers. Corporations don't want their dirty laundry in the public eye, and they're very effective at controlling that.

I'm not surprised. He's probably got a lot of great offers lined up already and he's obviously extremely talented. He managed to take Darabont's work and enrich it into the TV stratosphere! His recent anti-gun tweets don't seem so hypocritical now either. I thought it was kind of counter intuitive to produce a survivalist show like The Walking Dead and be a gun opponent but with this news, it makes a lot more sense.

I've heard Kirkman on a few podcasts and sitting in televised interviews, and he's really unbearable. I wonder why no one blames the other constant in this equation: showrunners don't want to work with Kirkman. (I don't follow TWD aside from Alan's blog and watching the show, so maybe this is self-evident.)

This is quite concerning considering that the last block of episodes was by far the most consistent quality that the show had, and was quite an improvement.

At a guess it would probably suggest pressure from AMC to essentially 'do more with less' and it just led to a massive fight.

Kirkman's comments are really weird considering the split is "in the best interest of the future of the show". Strange that getting rid of your #1 writer can be considered a good thing. But I guess from Kirkman's viewpoint, the longer the show goes on the more money he will personally make.

Those comments were written for the press release. Don't expect anyone involved to speak out in a press release. That said, Kirkman seems very loyal to AMC over this show. I wouldn't expect him to speak against them, and why not? This comic book and especially this show are by far the biggest successes on his resume. Would you really expect him to bite the hand that feeds, especially considering this show could theoretically pay big royalties for many years to come?

Judging from AMC's relentless flogging of reality shows like Small Town Security and Freaks, and their money-based conflicts with the creators of quality shows that are actually worth watching, their business plan seems to have the goal of turning the network into the next VH-1.

The fact is, this season has been the strongest and most consistent of the entire series. Sure, there are still some glaringly inconsistent and unbelievable plot devices (and characters) that simply don’t work. But, there are far fewer problems than in seasons past.

I’m not a fan of Glen Mazzara. And, if he was truly let go due to genuine creative differences, I’d be jumping for joy. Sadly, it’s clear that this is about AMC wanting to save money and cut corners – and has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with creative differences. I highly doubt that someone at AMC angrily insisted upon “better characterizations, better dialog, and better plots”. No, I’m sure the dictate was simply “stop spending so much fucking money! Let’s have a couple of seasons watching Hershel plant vegetables in the prison courtyard.”

Good old AMC. Mutual bull! The all mighty $$. That's all they care about.
Believe me, you can say what you think look at BREAKING BAD. not even a complete ending until next year. Only voted number 1 in best shows. All the cuts they had to come of with. For their budget. Bottle episodes and other stuff. They have to think outside the box!! You get what you pay for.

Based on nothing but my own opinion, I think the problem is Kirkman. He didn't like that they were moving the show away from his "vision". The little I've seen of him on Talking Dead, he doesn't strike me as being sophisticated enought to adapt a comic book into something that will work on television. When other people try to move away from his source material, a problem develops and that person end up leaving.